


Les Babes

by Lukas17



Series: The Royal Palace [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Multi, Pregnant Trans Man, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 12:50:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12557752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukas17/pseuds/Lukas17
Summary: After four months Noctis' blood pressure was up twenty points and he'd had three breakdowns. He may not have been pregnant, but it sure felt like he was.





	Les Babes

Prompto moved rooms to accommodate his new station. He was put in a larger room with a view of the front gates, and the guardsmen were allowed to resume their routine of using his old room as an overnight guards post. It didn’t matter too much, the Royal Chambers were as much Prompto’s as they were his and Luna’s. He just had a much bigger closet for all the fancy clothes he’d had to purchase.

Mornings were typically nice. He’d wake up slowly, normally starting when Prompto returned from his run and came back to bed to catch another hour of sleep, and then breaching awakeness when Luna turned on the blow dryer after her morning shower. It became such a routine that when it stopped one morning he was thrown a little off balance.

He woke up to Luna’s outside voice with only an hour before he had to be at the other end of the castle for a meeting with Lady Fiel. Luna grabbed his shoulders and shook him until he was out of the bed and standing. She then turned to Prompto with her inside voice, but he was already rubbing at his eyes and sitting up from all the noise. Noctis didn’t enjoy waking up to all of that.

The morning soured his day a bit, but he carried on all the same. Between Lady Fiel, paperwork, and meetings to work on the budget for next year he didn’t have much time to think about it all.

His meeting at one was cancelled, so he had three hours midday to spend as he wanted. Feeling a little tired he returned to their wing expecting it to be mostly empty. The living area was quiet, and only one guard was posted at the entrance, so he was surprised to see Prompto on the bed as he entered the room.

Prompto hadn’t moved far, only shifting to the middle of the bed rather than the side closest to the window. He paid little mind as Noctis entered, focusing on sending a text over his phone. His chest was bare, however, which was welcome.

Ever since taking his position Prompto’s had to entertain himself. Normally he split his time between volunteer for The Witch on her research projects, going to a few classes at the college, and working out with a trainer. It was hard to see the effort put in with the layers of clothes he wore, but it was easy to see how toned he’d become in the past few weeks.

It was also a little intimidating. Noctis was sure he’d gained whatever fat Prompto had lost and then some.

“You’re not going to work?” He asked as he unbuttoned his shirt.

Prompto stretched, “Nah. Too tired.”

Noctis folded up his clothes to keep them from getting wrinkled then slipped under the covers with Prompto. “Are you sick? I’ve never seen you tired at noon before.”

Prompto suddenly laughed very, very loudly, startling Noctis enough that he jumped under the covers. For a moment Prompto couldn’t calm down enough to explain what was so funny, and Noctis almost felt like he’d walked into some sort of breakdown. Prompto wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Sorry, I had a joke and it was really funny.”

“What was it?”

“I was going to say that I wasn’t sick, just pregnant. Ah, but I think it was funnier in my head.”

Noctis didn’t really know how to respond to that. It wasn’t like how he imagined a pregnancy announcement would be. There was no cheeky gift or hesitant announcement. Prompto was still giggling at his joke as he pushed himself up and wrapped both arms around Prompto’s shoulders.

“Really? When’d you find out?”

Prompto leaned back into his arms. “This morning. I suspected a for a week though.”

“Do you want to be?”

“Yeah. Luna and I decided to make it a competition. We both went off a few months ago.”

“And why wasn’t I informed?”

“Oh I don’t know, I seem to remember you saying that you didn’t care when you had a kid as long as it was before you died.”

“You know you two really shouldn’t take everything I say seriously.”

“I disagree.”

Noctis kissed Prompto’s neck rather than respond to that. Prompto eased back to let him, but Noctis found himself curious of one thing. He let his hands wander up Prompto’s stomach to poke at well toned abs, trying to see if he could feel for a baby under the muscle.

He didn’t get far. After a moment Prompto painfully smacked his hand away. “What the hell Noct?”

“I’m curious!”

“I literally just found out, how long do you think this is going to take?”

\---

Luna had been delighted to hear the news, immediately going in to kiss Prompto and pet at his stomach much like Noctis had. Prompto didn’t seem any more happy for that to happen then he had before, but he was nice enough to only push her hand away.

There was a lot to think about with a royal pregnancy. Lady Fiel and Luna’s advisor, Lady Rhyne, both weighed in on the matter. Lady Fiel, conservative as always, thought it better to follow traditional Tenebrae customs. An announcement at two months, limited public appearances, after the birth a public viewing during the day and a private affair during the full moon. Lady Rhyne, however, felt that was too early. In the shaky political climate they were in, especially with the Niflheim Republic, and if anything went wrong they would eventually have to make that public as well. She suggested waiting around six months before announcing the news and to skip the public viewing entirely.

Prompto, for what it was worth, didn’t seem concerned at all with what either of them said. He woke up for his runs, went to work and classes at the local college, generally lived his life as he normally did. As such it was up to Noctis to worry.

“The Niflheim republic might send assassins.” Lady Rhyne said. “They might assume His Grace’s death would wound the Crown.”

He didn’t want to let the stress get to him, but it was certainly trying.

\---

“I think we should do the room in yellow.” Luna announced one morning on a day they didn’t have anything to do. She’d laid out color swatches in a disordered pile on the table. Her eyes met his and he had the strongest urge to turn around and go back to bed.

“Luuuuna.” Prompto whined from the living area as the TV went to commercial. “I’m not even showing.”

“But we need to be prepared Prompto.” She insisted. “What if it comes early?”

“How long does it take to decorate a room Luna.”

“Well a long time. It’s our first child! We should put effort into it.”

Noctis stepped up to the table and pulled a color swatch at random. “Here.” He pointed to a chocobo yellow, “This is what we’ll use.”

Luna’s nose scrunched up. “That’s an ugly yellow Noctis. It’s too bright.”

“Are you going to make this difficult Luna?”

“No, I’m going to micromanage it until it’s perfect.” She gathered as much of the swatches as she could in her arms, not minding the ones that quickly fell to the floor. “I’m going to choose a room for the baby. You can come if you’ll be helpful.”

Noctis did not go. Notably Prompto didn’t either, but he was still working on his meal of plain oats in hopes that eating bland food slowly would stop him from hurling. With the way he poked at his food, however, made it clear that the nausea had gotten to him.

“What color do you want the room Prom?” He asked.

“Hmmm, I’m not to worried about it.” Which was a relief. He was a little worried that Luna had bulled over Prompto’s input. “Do you want the rest of this?”

“No, you’re eating for two.” He sat down next to Prompto on the couch.

“That is exactly not how that works.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it’s not. It’s not a fully grown adult, Noctis.”

“Well you have a good excuse to eat like it is.”

As if to protest this Prompto pushed the bowl away to focus on the cartoon coming back on.

“Prom, you don’t have to worry about your weight you know.”

“Actually I do. Did you know that it’s really common to gain an extra twenty pounds?”

Noctis didn’t know exactly how to breach this topic. Prompto’s body issues stretched back long before him and were too complex for him to really understand. He instead convinced Prompto to play a racing game and didn’t comment when half of the oats went in the trash.

Luna had decided to set the baby in her old room, and had begun the long, arduous process of sticking all the swatches on the wall to judge them. She’d already dumped a handful of them into the bin when he’d found her an hour later.

“Doesn’t the baby normally stay with the parent in the first two weeks Luna?” He asked.

“Sometimes. Depends on the parent really.” She answered. “Why?”

“Well, you could wait two weeks before you start on this.”

“Noctis no one’s asking you to do anything, why are you so resistant to this?”

“Because, it just feels a little early. Like something could happen and we’ll all be disappointed.”

“That sounds like Lady Rhyne. You two stress too much.” She ran a hand up and down his arm. “Worrying about it won't fix it you know.”

“I… suppose.”

“See? It’s more trouble than it’s worth. You should try finding something less stressful to worry about. Like buying maternity clothes for Prompto. You know him and clothes shopping.”

\---

In October Noctis found himself impulse buying ten different fall maternity coats from a high end male maternity store. Most of them were black, but he threw in a red and dark brown just for variety, though he could only remember his time in the store as a frenzied blur seated between the thought that Prompto needed a new jacket and thinking that he may have bought too much.

He thought to say the purchases were for Prompto’s birthday, but that wouldn’t hold water so he had someone hide them in the back of Prompto’s section of the closet when they were all out. As it was Prompto would be well taken care of on his birthday.

It was standard for there to be some sort of party of the birthday of a member of the royal family, which Prompto officially was. But Prompto had taken himself out of the planning process entirely and let someone on the committee run wild with only the restriction that no ice cream be allowed anywhere in the hall.

Noctis didn’t understand the point of aging if you didn’t have ice cream, but it also wasn’t his party.

Luna decided on a nice blue dress instead of white and then playfully chastised him when he came out in his usual black suit.

“You’re going to bore the public if you wear that for every occasion.”

“It’s my uniform.”

“It’s boring.”

“How about this, you wear black and I’ll agree to wear whatever color you want.”

“Oh is that a promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

She stuck her tongue out.

The party started at seven thirty. He and Luna arrived right on time to greet everyone and mingle for a while. Most members of the courts and the political body were there along with a handful of Prompto’s classmates. He and Luna made sure to do their due diligence and speak with everyone, but after half an hour they both began to worry.

“Have any of you seen Prompto?” Noctis asked one of the guards. The man shook his head, but promised to look for him.

Noctis could feel a pang of panic, but Luna grabbed his hand and led him away to do more mingling.

Prompto’s absence was noticed much more than usual not only by them but by a few of their guests. Duke Ferind asked after him twice to see if he could pull Prompto away for a round of shooting. Noctis didn’t know where this man thought pulling a gun out would be okay, but he assumed this was a Niflheim thing and let it slide.

It was an hour into the party when Prompto was found. Luna tapped Noctis’ shoulder and pointed towards the punch bowl where the birthday boy was talking with Lady Vienna. Noctis tried not to puke into a plant when he saw her eyes widen and arms go around to hug Prompto. Panic abated they kept a respectable distance until Prompto disengaged and greeted his other guests. By the time he’d made it to them Luna had helped herself to two drinks from the bar.

“Where have you been?” Luna said, beating him to the question. “And when was Vienna put on the guest list?”

“When I asked for her?” Prompto raised an eyebrow, “Listen I know you guys don’t like her, but she is my friend. And I accidentally had a Noct Nap in the garden. I woke up about ten minutes ago.”

“What’s a Noct Nap?”

“It’s when you sleep for four hours in the middle of the day.” Luna said quickly. “Don’t you think it’s dangerous to leak your pregnancy like that Prompto? You spend a lot of time alone with her.”

“You guys have a nap named after me?”

“I trust her Luna. She has been nothing but helpful.”

Luna sighed, but respectfully said nothing.

“Why do you guys have a nap named after me?”

Prompto shrugged. “It’s not just us you know. The maids use it as a code for don’t disturb.”

Noctis wanted to feel insulted at that, but he only managed to be mildly put out.

“So how long do you want to stay? If you’re tired we can go after some more mingling.”

“Nah, I’m wide awake. Duke Ferind invited me out shooting and I wanted to see what exactly he had planned for that.”

\---

Duke Ferind led three people out to shoot at rabbits out in the field while it was dark. The entire thing was supposed to be a challenge, but all it did was leave a bunch of dead rabbits for the gardeners to clean up. Prompto was guilty enough about the whole mess that he left a crisp fifty and an apology note in their lockers as they disposed of all the bunny bodies. Noctis had to wonder if Prompto would ever truly understand how being a royal worked.

A few servants brought up all the gifts Prompto had been given by the visiting dignitaries and a few sent in by mail. It was a rather large pile, nothing too big as far as Noctis was concerned but Prompto looked confused when he first saw it. He took a few hours to get up the courage to start opening them.

“I wonder how many of these will be sex stuff?” Luna said offhandedly. Noctis felt an eyebrow go up against his will.

“Why would anyone send sex stuff Luna?”

“Well he’s an Inamorato, and to a lot of Tenebrae royals that basically means he’s expected to have a potential heir. They might figure that he needs a little help?”

“I don’t want to open these anymore!” Prompto whined. “Luna, you open them!”

“No you!”

“You!”

“I’m the queen, I don’t have to do anything.” She stuck her tongue out at him in the least queenly way possible.

He sighed, “Fine. But I’m going to be nice to myself and not think about how much everything costs.”

The biggest box was a TV. A nice, 4k number with an accompanying game system. Both of which they had. Prompto pushed it over to the storage pile.

Next was a bottle of wine which Noctis recognized, they’d served it at their wedding. It was brewed from a special variety of grapes from a small farm situated next a volcano. Each bottle cost the same as it’s own weight in gold. That was saved for later.

A few watches were scattered around the pile along with a silk robe, a limited edition wallet from a high-end designer, a bottle of barrel aged whiskey, and a painting done by a late artist whose work was recently going up. They were all nice gifts if a little impersonal.

Then Prompto found a box the length of his arm sent through the mail. He opened it up the wrong way and had the unfortunate luck of watching an extra large, diamond encrusted dildo roll out.

Luna immediately burst out laughing, Noctis wished he could say the same but the item looked too horrific to laugh at. It instead invoked the image of some sort of torture dungeon with a very disturbing sex theme. Prompto tried to hide his laughter in his hands, but Luna’s mirth was infectious and he soon was doubled over.

“I knew it!” Luna yelled between her tears, “I knew someone would!”

“Oh man, imagine that up inside you.” Noctis whined, “It’ll be like that time I didn’t cut my nails and sliced through Luna’s clitoris.”

That sent Luna spiraling again, gasping for breath at the memory. “That’s exactly what that would be like!”

Eventually Prompto got the monstrosity into a trash bin and they went through the final half of the presents. Most of them were as lavish, but impersonal, as to be expected. All but Lady Vienna who sent him what Noctis guessed to be some kind of vintage camera. It was old and broken, but Prompto’s eyes lit up and he ended up going on a long info dump about ancient versions of cameras that Noctis could barely follow. It was nice.

He still had one of the maids sanitize it when Prompto was out.

\---

Lady Fiel and Lady Rhyne’s debates got so heated they almost dropped the formalities entirely and started an outright fist fight in the meeting room, and Noctis didn’t know who to listen to. Lady Rhyne would send him memos from the spymaster warning him if the new Emperor so much as sneezed. Then he’d listen to Lady Fiel talk about keeping the peace at court, and how failing to follow tradition could be seen as a personal sleight by a foreign King who refused to bow to local custom.

Eventually Luna took the guessing out of it entirely. The second Prompto began to show she had announcements made for every politician, every member of the royal family, every friend they’d ever had. They were simple with beautiful font on a white background with little gold stars simply stating that Prompto was expecting.

Lady Fiel thought they were quite charming. Lady Rhyne looked as if she’d tug her hair out.

He felt a weight lift off his shoulders as the decision was taken from him, it’d been heavier than he’d thought.

Security made arrangements to make sure Prompto was always covered. It wasn’t the best arrangement, but he made sure to choose the guards he liked the most. They did a good job of keeping the paparazzi away and getting him from place to place, and Prompto was careful to not sound too put out by the change in his routine.

That was all good, so good that Noctis wasn’t prepared for the next hurdle.

A pile of pamphlets had been left on the table one evening. They had scary titles like “Post-Delivery Depression” and “Signs you have gestational diabetes”. Noctis ended up reading through all of them before he could change out of his raiments. He didn’t want to say he was panicking, but he was panicking.

“What do you want for dinner?” Prompto asked from the living room.

“Whatever you want.” He said quickly.

Prompto walked into the lounge area, eyebrow raised. “Is something wrong.”

“No.” Noctis dropped the pamphlet.

“Hey, Noct, the doctor just gave me them to look over. I don’t have Preeclampsia or a low placenta or whatever you’re clearly freaking out about.”

“I know.”

Prompto gathered up the stack of papers. “Man if these get you worried wait until you hear what Vienna and I found out.”

Noctis, officially panicking, reached out and grabbed Prompto’s to still him. “What do you find out!? Is it bad?”

“Well what’s your definition of bad?”

“Death Prompto. Is it going to die, will it, like, be born without it’s spine or something?” His breathing picked up against his will. Despite that he felt out of breath.

“Well it’s definitely nothing like that.”

“Is it cancer? Will it have some autoimmune disease? What is it?”

“It’ll be fine Noct. Jeez. It’s nothing serious.”

“You promise?”

“Yes I promise.” Prompto pulled his hand away. “You’re more worried about this than I am.”

A week later Noctis was given a soft ban from appointments. Prompto said he could come if he really wanted to, but neither of them thought it was best.

That hurt, but when he cornered the doctor for an hour one evening to ask about breaching he could kind of see where they were coming from. He was allowed to ask what they discussed at the appointment, but he decided not. He could feel himself losing control over everything and he needed to step back.

\---

The palace was a little more festive than usual, marking the transition to winter with a public event that he could see from his office. Most of the staff were taking breaks, which he could do as well, but he didn’t want to get a surprise workload during Christmas so he checked his work before deciding to take a half day. He might go down later, but Luna was already making an appearance so he didn’t feel the need.

His ascent up was quiet, most of the other floors were empty as well. A few guards in the hallways, a maid cleaning up a spill. He expected the suite to be similarly empty, but when he arrived Prompto was at the window taking pictures.

“What are you doing?” He asked, stripping off his raiments. His eyes caught a note from their doctor laying on the table, but remembering the time with the pamphlets he chose to ignore it.

“I want to see how good the zoom is on this new camera. I have a really good picture of Luna with a screaming baby, you wanna see?”

Prompto pulled the image up on the little screen and showed him the picture of Luna, her face the definition of uncomfortable, trying to hand the baby off to someone else.

“Hope that doesn’t happen with our baby.” He joked.

He left Prompto to his pictures as he got changed into sweats and laid down on the bed. Under the warm blankets he closed his eyes and let himself doze. After a few minutes Prompto joined him.

Prompto’s arms went around his waist as he kissed up Noctis’ neck. Noctis let out a sigh, and he was thoroughly enjoying the intimacy until Prompo’s hands wormed their way under his T-shirt.

Noctis squirmed at the touch, and not in the good way. He was getting mixed signals, both stop and go, between the hands on his one side and the round stomach pressed into his other.

“Wait Prom - Prom!” He pulled his head back. “Can you - can you have sex right now?”

Prompto looked very put out at the question, his face twisting into a frown. “Why couldn’t I?”

“Well… you are pregnant.”

“So? What do you think’s going to happen?”

“I-I.. I just-” He didn’t know, but Noctis felt like he didn’t deserve that unamused look. He was like most guys in that the topic of babies and the topic of sex were two mutually exclusive entities that did not, at any point, overlap. Prompto was pregnant, so sex had to be off the table.

“It’s actually supposed to be healthy. Keeps the hormones in balance. You were worried about my health right?”

\---

Noctis didn’t want to say he felt weirded out at having sex with an obviously pregnant person, but he did apologize to the baby for moving in on it’s home. Despite that Prompto seemed to have enjoyed it, and nothing catastrophic happened afterwards. So his worries that he’d induce some weird floodgate of terribleness were unfounded. He left Prompto sleeping in the bed as he wandered down to the kitchens to get some food.

There were some cookies that hadn’t been served to the guests downstairs. He took a plate of them and pretended that he would go on a run with Prompto to work them all off.

Back upstairs he found Luna’s dress on the back of the couch, but no Luna anywhere in the suite. He poked his head in the baby’s room only to hear her voice coming from the empty room next to it.

“Noctis! Did you see the note?” She said. He walked in to see that she had green color swatches patched up the wall.

“From the doctor?”

“Yes!”

“No, I’m trying to take a step back Luna.”

She looked over her shoulder, face looking very puzzled “So you’re not going to look at it?”

“I assume you two will let me know if it’s something dire. But I don’t think I can handle it if the note says there’s a two percent chance the baby will have a congenital heart defect.”

“So you don’t want to know what it says.”

“No.”

“...Oh…”

\---

Prompto ballooned up after Christmas, putting on weight on his stomach until everything sort of dropped and sat lower than he expected. He’d had to reduce his exercise plan, and started drinking some strange, green smoothie every morning. Plans were being made for the baby shower in early April, but it had become another battle ground between Lady Rhyne and Lady Fiel over who should attend and when exactly it should be held. Noctis felt a little more equipped to handle this one, but the feud was distracting Lady Fiel and he held off on the decision making to enjoy some time off from being micromanaged.

Luna was going on some sort of decorating spree with a violet room and a red room joining the list. Prompto was, thankfully, lending a hand with that so he didn’t have to worry about them.

Near the beginning of February Gladio, his girlfriend, a shocking title given the circumstance, and their kids were able to visit. Gladio and Ignis were in Insomnia to help with the reconstruction, but it would be awhile before the Crownsguard or the Citadel would be ready for them to return. During that reconstruction Gladio met Camille, an ex-hunter, and immediately began popping out children. Thus far they were three in and planning for a third.

“Prompto!” Gladio yelled as he got out of the car in the parking area of the palace, “What did you eat?”

Gladio laughed at his own joke, Prompto seemed amused at it but he still rolled his eyes, “I thought you’d at least hold it in for a little while.”

“We’re not going to be up for long enough. Gotta get ‘em out quick. You probably understand.”

“Haaaaa.”

Noctis found himself helping unload by holding their youngest. His name was Balendin, and he managed to get a fistful of Noctis’ hair in his little hands and pull hard enough to take some strands out. He wished he could be mad, but he didn’t know what else to expect from a baby born by two people with biceps as big as his head. Luna had been saddled with the second oldest and had narrowly avoided a black eye as she swung her baby fists around.

Technically Gladio had been given time to come down to observe the local guard and recruit, which he did do for all of half a day. Luna took him down to the captains, they talked for a while observed some training, and promised to send five over to work with the building guard in Insomnia. The arrangement had been a guarantee before it’d hit Luna’s desk. They the rest of the day to do whatever.

Noctis got to spend that morning with their kids, and it made him really think about how many children he wanted. Balendin was a tornado, full of too much energy for someone so small. Camille let him race around the gardens with his toys to exhaust some of it but Noctis thought it would be never ending. The other two, Fleurette and Hibiscus, were quiet in between their crying, but sometimes they’d start sobbing for absolutely no reason and neither he nor Camille could get them to quiet down. They’d just go until they reached some arbitrary level of okay, and return to playing their games.

“It’s because they’re restless.” Camille said, “I think. We’re just looking forward to when training starts.”

“Can’t wait for all of this, hey Noct?” Prompto joked, elbow Noctis in his ribs.

“It’s always more tolerable when it’s your own children.” Camille said, “Other people’s kids tend to be more annoying.”

Camille let them race around all day so that by the time seven rolled all three of them could barely keep their eyes open. She put them to bed in the guest room and left one of the maids in charge to watch them. Noctis was almost glad to be rid of them all after each of them managed to get spit up on his shirt. He had enough time to change before heading out for dinner at some fancy steakhouse that Prompto had picked out.

Between new recruits and children Gladio had amassed quite the long list of stories to tell around dinner, which didn’t make Noctis’ unease any easier to swallow. Between potty training, teething, and general child-like behavior Noctis almost found himself leaning over to ask Prompto if it was too late for him to change his mind.

He bit his tongue, this was just nerves.

\---

Gladio went back the next day and things were blissfully quiet until the second week of April when they threw the baby shower. Neither of their political advisors were happy with it. The list was both too long for Lady Rhyne and too short for Lady Fiel. The date was too late for Lady Fiel, and too early for Lady Rhyne. But Noctis thought it was a nice day, so he tried not to think about it too hard.

Three weeks ago he and Luna had a bet on who could sway Earl Victor into attending a foreign event in Niflheim. Earl Victor was a fantastic debater, but extremely recluse so it had been tricky. Eventually Luna flat out bribed the man and he was already on a boat to negotiate with the Niflheim republic on a tax for raw minerals.

And Noctis had to wear a colored suit to the babyshower.

It was a green suit, almost pastel green, with yellow accents. Luna felt it embodied spring quite well. He said it looked like puke.

Downstairs people were trickling in as servants unloaded heavy looking gifts from their cars. Like Prompto’s birthday this would be an event to kiss up to the crown, and from the looks of things they were going all out.

Prompto didn’t seem thrilled however. He’d been more fatigued lately, and his ankles were prone to swelling. But they couldn’t have another birthday party so a servant had been selected to help him get ready. They had been in a separate room for an hour and when Prompto came out he looked put together in a slimming jacket and dress pants even if his face was the picture of dread.

“How long do I have to be here Noct?” He asked, “Can I duck out after twenty minutes?”

“Nope.” He flattened the lapels on Prompto’s jacket, “Try to have a good time Prom, it’s only going to be a few hours.”

Prompto made an annoyed grunt but went through the procedure as expected, putting on a perfect poker face as he thanked everyone for coming in a quick speech before mingling. A band was playing some classics and there were games in the garden. It was one of their smaller parties, filled mostly with people he trusted and Lady Vienna.

A few people commented on his suit, but thankfully nothing too forward. Luna seemed quite pleased with herself over the attention. But that was nothing compared to what Prompto had to deal with.

An hour into the party everyone got to present their gifts to the baby, it was an old Lucis tradition Noctis decided to implement himself for the express purpose of putting a face to the shit that people brought and to, hopefully, avoid a repeat of the diamond dildo incident. Prompto had to sit up on the throne and people went up personally to present what they had brought. Some people stopped what they were doing to observe, but the invitation had been clear on refraining from doing just that and most people politely continued their mingling even as they kept an eye on the event.

“Your Grace.” Countess Diane said, “I present to the crown a crib handcrafted by the great Fiona Moretti made of solid oak and with a gold finish.”

Crib #25 was received with the same amount of grace and appreciation as the other 24, though Prompto was clearly running out of unique things to say. His responses were starting to sound like a fill in the black thank you card. Countess Diane bowed and a guard took the crib to be checked.

“Lady Diana Costa.” The attendant announced.

“Your are looking radiant as always Your Grace.”

“Thank you.”

“I present to the crown a set of gold baby bracelets handcrafted by a jeweler by the name of Silvio Lombardi.”

Noctis saw the faintest twitch in Prompto’s eye at the words “gold baby bracelets”. He tried not to laugh as Prompto accepted the gift and it was handed off to the guards once again to be checked.

Things went in this fashion for the duration of the party. Between the generic gifts came something a little more unique and thought out. Former Senator Flora, now Countess Flora, delivered six chocobo eggs just days away from being hatched. Which drew laughter from a few members at the party. Chocobos weren’t highly thought of in the courts, but Prompto nearly jumped in his seat at the sight of the eggs in the incubator.

“Who’s going to take care of them?” Luna whispered to him.

“We’ll have to hire someone.”

Lady Vienna’s gift was painfully personal and well thought out set of baby clothes in a variety of patterns. They hit all the marks for a royal gift, handmade, fine materials, and the like, but she had sixteen which seemed quite a lot. There was a chocobo one, a wyvern one, and more, no two were the same. They would look very cute on a baby. He and Luna almost loathed to admit how nice they were.

Prompto made it through the last few people before he was finally able to leave. He said his farewells and went up to their room where Noctis later found him sleeping.

\---

The final chill of winter soon faded, the doctor had Prompto scheduled for a C-section a few weeks before the estimated time he naturally would deliver. Noctis marked the date on his calendar and every time he looked at it he felt his spine grown more and more tight. It was like waiting for Christmas, if Christmas were the beginning of a lifelong responsibility to raise another vulnerable human.

He got less and less sleep in the week before the delivery. Sometimes Luna would be awake too, and they’d debate names. It was an enjoyable way to lose sleep if he had to be honest.

On June 7th he and Luna helped Prompto down the elevator to the medical wing. Luna hadn’t stopped chatting since she woke up that morning, and it was beginning to sound like she was actually, genuinely nervous. He couldn’t bring himself to really listen in as he squeezed Prompto’s hand tightly.

“Hello Your Majesties.” The doctor said at the front desk. “I can take you to the back Your Grace.”

Doctor Mura took Prompto into the back and the secretary at the front led them to the waiting area where she offered to get them anything as they waited.

“If we could get some coffee that would be great.” Luna said. The secretary left them to go grab it and Luna suddenly went silent as she fiddled with one of Prompto’s cameras, he hadn’t even noticed that she’d grabbed one.

“He ask you to take pictures?”

“Mmmmhmm.” She held it up and snapped one of him. She turned it around to show him the window and he saw the face of nervousness and sleep deprivation. “You excited?”

“That’s one way to describe it Luna.”

“You gonna run?”

“Maybe if something goes wrong.”

“Noctis we’ve made it this far without any problems, there’s not much that can go wrong.”

“Knock on wood.”

“Don’t be like that. If anything your dark mood is what’s going to bring bad luck. Prompto’s done everything he needs to, Doctor Mura is very good. We need good thoughts to pull through.”

“You sound like a stoner on T.V.”

“Well sometimes you need the patience and confidence of a TV. show stoner.”

The secretary came back with a press full of coffee, two small cups, and a variety of sugar and creamer. Luna dumped a creamer and three sugars in every cup she took. After three her hands were shaking and she kept pacing around the tiny room and messing with the camera. An hour after she had twenty pictures of birds she’d taken at the window, and they’d all been filtered until they no longer looked like birds.

He didn’t realize he could feel both bored and tense at the same time. It felt like every second was an eternity. There was no clock in the room, so he had to check his phone. But there wasn’t much entertainment so he played games on his phone and every few seconds he’d glance up to the top of the screen and wonder why the time hadn’t changed.

His feet began to tap with restless energy, filling the noiseless room until Luna, finally, pulled out her phone and started playing some slow jazz through the speaker. It didn’t help him much, by that point he was too caught up in his own head not even King’s Knight could help him. That morning he’d been fine, by the time Nat King Cole was playing he’d already thought up six ways everything could go horribly wrong. What if the baby breached? What if it got strangled on the umbilical cord, or someone dropped it and it’s tiny, baby body landed on the linoleum floor and died right there? What if-

“Your Majesties?”

Noctis yelped and dropped his phone on the floor. Doctor Mura, who stood at the now open door, looked shocked. Luna clumsily turned off the music as he picked his phone off of the floor.

“Everything went smoothly your Majesties, you can see the babies now”

Noctis felt his body go up without much input from his brain. His stomach churned, and his heart raced. He wanted to see, but he also wanted to run away. Was Luna feeling the same thing? It was hard to tell.

“They’re a little underweight.” Doctor Mura said. She’d been rambling on and only now did he actually digest her words. “But that’s normal for multiples.”

“Wait w-what?”

He was suddenly blinded by a click and a flash. His vision blacked out for a moment but returned quickly enough for him to make out Luna looking at the window of the camera.

“Oh no! Noctis I had the fish filter on. Make that face again.”

“Luna what the hell?”

“Prompto wanted a picture of your face when you were told.”

“You waited until the delivery to tell me that we’re having twins?”

“No. Because we have quadruplets.”

“Oh fuck.” He couldn’t breath. The click and flash came again as he felt his heart beat so fast he thought he would die. Somewhere along the way he fell flat on his ass and he only realized it when he was staring at the lights above them.

“Be careful!” A voice said. Two pairs of hands lifted him up and began to carry him.

He came back to himself rather suddenly. The hands were carrying him towards one of the rooms, and someone was yelling some medical lingo that he didn’t quite understand. But he felt steady enough to get his feet under him and swat their hands away.

“I’m fine I’m fine!” he said over and over. Things slowly came back into focus, a nurse had been called in to help carry him and a few paces away Luna genuinely looked worried.

“Just give me a minute!”

Doctor Mura shooed her nurse away as Noctis took a few deep breaths. He wasn’t calm per say, but he was getting his bearings back.

“Okay, I’m fine. I’m good.”

Neither Luna nor Doctor Mura looked like they believed him, but Doctor Mura led down the hall and Luna grabbed his hand.

“I would’ve told you if I had known you’d react like that.”

He didn’t say anything to that. React like what? Even he couldn’t pinpoint what he was feeling. It wasn’t dread, but it wasn’t elation either.

Behind a thick glass wall four babies were laid out in individual cribs swaddled in thick, pink blankets. Besides him Luna cooed and took pictures with the camera. Noctis’ stomach untangled somewhat. One of them was crying, but the other three were asleep. They didn’t look like what he expected. Their faces were red and smooshed.

“Why do they look like that? Because there were four of them?”

“Well most baby’s look different from what you might see in a magazine or movie.” Doctor Mura said. “They normally don’t take pictures of newborns. In a few days they’ll round out.”

“Were you expecting designer babies Noctis?” Luna joked.

“I was expecting a lot of things.”

“...What do you want to name them?”

“I was hoping one would have Aulea as a middle name.”

“Which one?”

“I dunno.”

“How about the first one? Winona Aulea Caelum?”

“Sure, that sounds nice.”

“I want one of them to be Roksana.”

“You told me that was old sounding.”

She shrugged, “It grew on me. I like Roksana Lux.”

“Okay. Didn’t Prompto say he wanted Ceto?”

“Mmmmhmm. Ceto Mare.”

“You know, this is a lot easier with four. Less fighting.”

Luna laughed, “Won’t be that way for long I suspect.”

“Not if you have your way.”

“Funny… I think the one crying should be called Viviana. She’s going to be a lively one.”

“I don’t remember Prompto approving that one.”

“We can talk about it when he wakes up. It’s not set in stone just yet.”

“Yeah.”

Prompto was still asleep even as night fell. The girls were clear to be held and Noctis’ stomach squeezed as he followed the instructions from the nurse to hold Winona. Besides him Luna was less steady as she picked up Viviana, her hands shaking as she attempted to support the head.

Noctis didn’t know how to describe his first time holding his child. He’d felt some many conflicting emotions since he heard the news almost nine months ago, but none of his worrying and preparations prepared him for the moment he got to hold one of his babies. He felt almost relieved. All his worrying had been for nothing. They were healthy and they were here. He couldn’t ask for anything else.

“Awww, they have your nose.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Hey, I like your nose.”

“But the rest of them is definitely Prompto. Shoulda got Prompto’s nose too.”

“Who knows, they might look more like you when they get older. Might have your hair.”

“Oh no, my two worst features.”

“Oh shut up. You’re handsome.”

They got to spend a few more minutes with the girls, but Doctor Mura wanted them to stay overnight for observation and Prompto would need to rest a bit more before she trusted he could handle visitors. He felt much better as he went up to their suite. The panic had subsided and for the first time in a while everything felt like it would be alright. He didn’t know how he would sleep with this newfound calmness, but once his head hit the pillow he was out like a light.

Prompto was awake the next morning. They’d put an I.V in his arm and had some pretty strong pain medication going through, but he seemed clear eyed, if a little tired, despite that.

“You should see them Prompto.” Luna gushed, “They’re gorgeous. I knew you and Noctis would have pretty babies.”

“Thanks. So glad we didn’t end up with some kinda monster.”

“Even if you did they would’ve been cute monsters.”

They stayed just long enough to get Prompto’s seal of approval on the names before he fell asleep again. It would still be a few days before he would be recovered enough to leave, but they were allowed to take the girls back that day.

Doctor Mura had printed out a terrifyingly long list of tips for them to read. There was a nanny, a woman named Esther, who would help them through it. Esther had been chosen by the council and was moved up to a small servant's room down the hall from her old bunk in the servant’s quarters. She was the one who seamlessly got the babies from the medical wing and up the stairs.

\---

Their first night was a little rough. He and Luna had pulled the cribs into their room, but no sooner were they asleep then they were woken by crying. It started off soft from Viviana, and Luna quickly tried to quiet her down, but soon Ceto joined and then Roksana. They had to call the nanny in to help and eventually the three quieted. Two hours the same thing happened again, only Winona joined in and none of them responded even to Esther’s tried and true solutions. Silence didn’t settle on their room until the sun broke through the horizon.

“I heard that babies were a lot of work.” Luna said, too tired to sleep, “But I wasn’t expecting all of this.”

“Next time we’ll have to tell Prompto to hold three of ‘em in for a year.”

“If there is a next time for him. I think Doctor Mura snipped him.”

Noctis frowned, “Why’d she do that?”

“He’s apparently prone to multiples. He and the harpy did a few tests a couple of months ago.”

He groaned, “Guess if we want another one it’s up to you. I’m counting on you Luna. Within ten years, alright?”

“Sure.” She said with a smile, “I’ll beat Prompto and have five.”


End file.
